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Osama is gone.


Øther

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You find a handwritten manuscript abandoned on the desk. Picking it up, you find that it is written by Commander Groul! Its heading says

 

ALLIANCE POLITICS IN THE VAHNATAI WAR: AN ANALYSIS

 

The Vahnatai, waking up from their hibernation to find their territories invaded, quickly and correctly identified the Empire as their chief adversary. They saw that the minor races were too busy with internal conflicts to significantly affect the war.

 

They concerned themselves instead with the disordered nation Exile. Seeing that the political struggle would be put aside if faced with a powerful alien aggressor, the Vahnatai introduced themselves as an ally in Exile's struggle against the Empire.

 

The Vahnatai left it to the humans to wear themselves out in the war. Only when the exiles had realized that they by themselves were losing, did fresh Vahnatai troops turn the tide of the war, making Exile victory wholly dependent upon their support.

 

The Vahnatai must have been tempted to turn on their ally and secure full control of the cavern realms. Instead they held, perhaps wisely, that no complete victory could be won until their main opponent, the Empire, had been defeated.

 

The strategy might have worked, except for the often discussed defection of Exile. Their unexpected alliance with their old rival made Exile — definitely the weakest party of the three — the only overall victor, gaining territories and prestige.

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Largest contiguous empire in history, conquered largely under the auspices of Genghis Khan, lost its impetus and eventually collapsed and was divided up by various warlords and sons when Genghis had the audacity to die of a heart attack when they were about to conquer Europe.

 

Since I doubt you will actually read the Wikipedia article even when linked directly to it.

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Star Wars: Rebellion taught me about garrisons, espionage, etc. I guess it really goes to show that teaching is most effective when the learner is having fun. My oldest nephew is learning to read now, and what does he like to read? Lego magazines. On the one hand, I'm not all that comfortable with someone using advertisements as learning material. On the other hand, I don't think he would be as excited about Dick and Jane/Mr. Mugs/whatever.

 

Also, hands up everyone who only knows about Kamchatka from Risk.

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*raises hand*

 

Did anyone else do the method of holding all of Australia plus Siam and dumping the entirety of your forces on Siam? It means there's only one way for them to attack, and they don't get Asia. I would hole up there once I amassed enough troops and just stay defensive, occasionally making small attacks, until they gave up.

 

Also, LotR risk is fun stuff. I have yet to lose to the damn hippie elves.

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Originally Posted By: loyal servile of sasuke uchiha
Isnt RISK a boards game?

I'm pretty sure there is a computer version.

There is an easy way to defeat the Siam/Australia strategy by slowly wearing down the main force with superior numbers from controlling the rest of the world. That's why taking North America as a base works better since you can expand south and then take over the rest of the world.
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Originally Posted By: It's a trap
*raises hand*

Did anyone else do the method of holding all of Australia plus Siam and dumping the entirety of your forces on Siam? It means there's only one way for them to attack, and they don't get Asia. I would hole up there once I amassed enough troops and just stay defensive, occasionally making small attacks, until they gave up.

Also, LotR risk is fun stuff. I have yet to lose to the damn hippie elves.


That method is really terrible, and I have yet to see it work. Australia is one of the two lowest-earning continents, you have no real opportunity to surprise someone or attack an undefended front. . . You'll be annoying and only die from attrition, but will also be essentially harmless to a player with any other continent.
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the effectiveness of holding australia depends heavily on the number of players. in a game with only two or three players it doesn't really work too well. in a game with 6 players everyone else is pretty likely to end up fighting each other and ignoring you as too much trouble to be worth dealing with until eventually they leave it too late and you're already strong enough to ruin everyone's day

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Originally Posted By: Dintiridan
Also, hands up everyone who only knows about Kamchatka from Risk.

Plus Irkutsk, Yakutsk, and Ural.

For some reason my most successful games involve me taking over Europe.

Speaking of vocabulary, the Exile trilogy taught me "portcullis" and "exorbitant."
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Australia is really a gamble, because you get a low paying continent fairly easily, but then all you can do is try to conquer Asia. That's why Australians usually fare well in the beginning, but then quickly get drowned out in the imperial scramble.

 

The winner often times comes from the New World. A player who can unite the Americas early on is nigh unstoppable. However, wasted war between North and South rarely bodes well for the Western Hemisphere.

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I set my computer version (when I play) to let us (me and the 5 computers) pick our countries one by one, and then the game randomly places our starting armies. Australia is typically a safe bet, as the computer AIs all look for control of a continent. As long as you're the first one there, you can get it before the game starts and then take a single holding in other continents. I then slowly take over Asia. After a round or two of holding the whole thing, it's simple to plow through the rest of the Eastern Hemisphere.

 

North America is my least favorite to start with because I can never get it before the other players all have continents. Then again, I've only ever attempted Europe a handful of times.

 

The worst part is that, like I said, the AIs in my game all go for continents. It comes down to having an early pick and manipulating the continent selection. After that, it just takes non-suckage dicerolls to avoid, well, suckage.

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Eh, Risk tends to have far too little skill and far too much luck involved for me to enjoy. I have way more fun playing computer risk with dozens of armies per territory, as there's still chance involved, but less chance for random upsets/streaks of bad luck, and much more tactics and strategy.

 

Or course, the best games are the ones with no random chance. Chess and Go have stayed popular all these years for a reason, people.

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You must be using a different definition of 'popular', then.

 

We talked about setting up a SMAC multiplayer once, but nothing ever came out of it. SMAC strikes me as the type of game that would be horrible for multiplayer from a schedule point of view. Other games like Starcraft would be interesting, though.

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Cant take the heat of risk stay out of the kitchen.

 

You see what I did in risk is that I took over the US. Put tons of guards on where they comefrom in europe and south america, I take my people in alaska and make it sail to the eastern hemespere and have an all out war on asia. Eventualy I make the middle my capital and put stuff around my borders. Unfortunatly I let america crumble away. I still won though, I took care of those pesky aulstralions easily. Thats why i love risk.

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Maybe your next game will be different!

 

Anyway, I prefer the 'nuclear risk' variant. It turns the red pieces into nukes, that can be taken at any time in lieu of normal units, one for one. Once placed, they cannot move, and they do not count in defense against normal units. If the territory in which nukes are placed falls to a conventional attack, they are all destroyed. But on your turn, a nuke can be expended, to kill one enemy unit anywhere on the board. Exception: if your target is in a territory containing enemy nukes, the opponent can elect to exchange one of his nukes against yours, instead of an ordinary piece. A territory whose conventional defenders are eliminated by nukes is not conquered. It becomes impassable due to radiation for one full round of the game (one turn by every player), and thereafter is empty, and can be occupied by any player who moves into it as a 'free move' at the end of their turn.

 

It's usually a good idea to say that no-one is allowed to fire a nuke until the fourth round of play. That way people get some chance to establish a continent before the bombs start going off.

 

The great thing about nuclear risk is that it normally only lasts about an hour, and what gets skipped is tedious and especially luck-based hunting down of weak players to steal their cards. Once you have as many nukes as the enemy has units, he's out immediately and you get his cards, without having to chase him around the board. So the game wraps up fast.

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If you could use nukes anywhere to respond to nukes launched anywhere, there'd be no reason to place nukes anywhere but your most defended, isolated territory. (The corner of Australia, perhaps?) Part of the balance of nuclear risk is having to distribute and defend your nuclear stockpiles, and the decisions to spread them defensively or not and whether to launch them out of an embattled territory or not make the game better.

 

—Alorael, who still doesn't want to play Risk. For that particular game kick he'd rather go with Vinci or Small World, which work somewhat similarly but, in one board gamer's opinion, much better.

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